Ipomea suducing the nasturtium

*To the poor, poor souls who hate Valentine’s Day… find another blog post to read. But if you love Valentine’s Day, and want to spice it up naturally…  continue below.

Her breath is like honey spiced with cloves,

Her mouth delicious as a ripened mango.

To press kisses on her skin is to taste the lotus,

The deep cave of her navel hides a store of spices

What pleasure lies beyond, the toungue knows,

But cannot speak of it.

- Srngarakarika, Kumaradadatta, 12th century

Valentine’s Day is for lovers… in what ever capacity you like to love. So, in tribute to love, here are some veggies and spices you may want to bring to the dinner table tonight – or every night for that matter.

Anise (Pimpinella anisum) a fabulous ingredient for making jams, cookies, salad dressings, and liqueurs. (*Also fabulous in sugar scrub form)Anise is the base for Pernod, a liqueur fashionable in 19th century Europe, when drunk in excess leads to madness and death. Drunk in smaller doses, it is said to induce “lust in newlyweds” and to cure impotence.

Dill (Anethum graveolens) The leaves are used especially with fish, and the seeds in salad dressings, baking, breads and eaten raw for good digestion. Is said to instigate arousal within one hour (or your money back!). Plus… the leaves are good for tickling.

Parsley (Petroselinum crispum) Sooo that’s why parsley is on the side of every dish! Some texts say that parsley, prepared as a balm for rubbing on one’s body (erogenous zones), produces hallucinations before climax.

Asparagus (Asparagus officinalis) Quite possibly the finest of all in the vegetable kingdom. They taste great, fun to eat and phallic… what else could one want? In Sheikh Nefzawi’s The Perfumed Garden, we find several recipes for reviving the enthusiasm of exhausted lovers: “He who boils asparagus and then fries them in fat, adding egg yolks and powdered condiments, and eats this dish daily, will see his desire and his powers considerably fortified.”

Carrot (Daucus carota) Otherwise known as the “widow’s consolation” (I guess it would be a consolation, depending on the slouch you were with…), carrots were first cultivated in the Europe in the 16th century and were brought to America by the fist English colonists. Due to the vitamin A content and its shape, it is ascribed the power to feed sexual appetites… in one way or another.

Garbanzo (Cicer arietinum) In The Perfumed Garden the young Abu El Heidja fulfills the Herculean task of deflowering 80 virgins in a single night (wow, a good night at the club!), all thanks to a meal with an abundance of garbanzo beans.

Truffle Also called “testicle of the earth” (how sweet!) this fungus has an intense scent and a sensual flavor that, unless you were dead, will be sure to illicit your sensual side.